Every second year this Italian folk/power metal band delivers a new album. After the somewhat disappointing ‘Red Silent Tides’ (2010), they luckily came back stronger with ‘Era’ (2012) and this positive evolution is still present on ‘The Pagan Manifesto’. This eighth studio album contains even some of the most adventurous and progressive pieces of music Elvenking delivered till today, at the same time they fall back on the sound of albums like ‘Heathenreel’ and ‘Wyrd’ from the early days.

After a gloomy and folky intro the band of guitarist Aydan and singer Damna takes on the biggest challenge of this album: the 13 minutes clocking ‘King Of The Elves’ is the longest song in the history of the Italians and develops a pretty progressive pattern with many twists and turns without losing the well known Elvenking touch. During a calmer passage we even get a nice contribution of Amanda Somerville (Avantasia, Kamelot). The single ‘Elvenlegions’ is launched as a hymn for the fans and excels in catchiness. A furious double bass rules!

The violin of Lethien is characteristic for their total sound and this is the most prominent in the energetic ‘The Druid Ritual Of Oak’. Dark male choirs color songs like ‘Moonbeam Stone Circle’ and the epical closing song ‘Witches Gather’, but Elvenking also can be pretty catchy ('Pagan Revolution’ and ‘Twilight Of Magic’). In the folky ‘Towards The Shores’ they even approach the narrative style minstrels of old used. ‘The Pagan Manifesto' is a very diverse album, showing all qualities of Elvenking and even pushing them to a higher level. They are still going strong!!!